Tuesday, December 27, 2005

At 73, Omar Sharif is as charming as ever, smiling with those moist brown eyes and the trademark gap in his front teeth that have served him well in a long, distinguished life in the movies.

But the recent rebound in that career, he says, is thanks to advice from his two grandsons.

"I spent a long time making very bad films because I was in a bad moment of my career and also I needed money for my family and so on," said the actor, who reportedly ran up enormous gambling debts in his obsession with bridge - a gambling habit he says he's given up.

Sharif, who was in the Moroccan desert shooting a TV series, "The Ten Commandments," said in an interview that he found his grandsons teasing him. So the actor who burst onto Western screens in the 1964 epic "Lawrence of Arabia" decided to quit until a good role came along.

The dry spell lasted five years.

Then came the French movie "Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Quran," a 2003 film directed by Francois Dupeyron.Sharif won the French prize for best actor for his role as an aging Turkish Muslim shopkeeper in the Paris of the 1960s who befriends a lonely teenage Jewish boy, Momo. He teaches Momo about the esoteric traditions of Islam and the beauty and wisdom of Sufi Islam.

The Egyptian-born actor has long been an advocate of Muslim-Jewish friendship."I have a grandson who has a Jewish mother and I have a grandson who has a Muslim mother. ... I love them the same and they love each other. And everybody should love each other. That's why I made this French film - a Muslim man adopts a Jewish boy," said Sharif, who was born as Michel Shalhoub to affluent Christian Lebanese-Syrian parents and later converted to Islam.

Offers for movies began pouring in after "Monsieur Ibrahim.""Now I have 10 scripts every day offered to me and I choose the periods that I want to shoot and how long I want to be on a film," Sharif said, flashing that gap-toothed smile.

He appears in only four scenes in "The Ten Commandments" in his role as Moses' father-in-law Jethro. That is "just perfect," he said - he had to spend only two weeks in Ouarzazate, where director David Lean filmed part of "Lawrence of Arabia" more than 40 years ago.

In that film, Sharif's Arab chieftain character made one of the most beautiful entrances in film history, riding out of shimmering desert haze toward Peter O'Toole, who played the British adventurer T.E. Lawrence. Sharif earned an Academy Award nomination.

After that, he played a Russian in "Dr. Zhivago," a German in "Night of the Generals," an Austrian in "Mayerling," an American in "Funny Girl," a Mexican in "MacKenna's Gold" and a Cuban in "Che."

His billing is usually a bit lower these days. "You know, at my age, it's very difficult to find leading roles for old men," he said."I just did St. Peter," he added. "As a Muslim I did St. Peter. Now I'm playing Moses' father-in-law. But Moses is for all the religions. St. Peter is Christian completely."And of course I don't know what happens when it comes out in the Arab countries," he said with a chuckle while pouring himself a cup of mint tea.

Before he came to the world stage, Sharif was a star of Egyptian films and married to popular actress Faten Hamama. Now, he does Egyptian movies, with social themes, when "there's something I want to say to the Egyptian people, to criticize."A script he wrote in 1989 and acted in was called "Aragos" - "The Puppeteer" - a film about a buffoon whose shows dramatize the promise of former President Gamal Abdel-Nasser's socialist revolution.

The puppeteer spoke "the truth about what was in Egypt" through his puppet, Sharif said. When questioned by police, he would protest: "It's not me ... this idiot's speaking, I don't say these things, it's him.'"

In 2006, he plans to do a 30-episode series during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a prime time throughout the Arab world for broadcasting TV serials.He will play a successful Egyptian businessman living in the United States who returns to Egypt with his daughter after his wife dies, to show her his native country. "It's about me really," Sharif said.

Although his new films made in Egypt have a message, they are not political, he said, because "I don't find any terrible fault in the political situation in Egypt." The problems are poverty, ignorance and overpopulation, he said.Sharif sees no chance for democracy in the Arab world. "Because we are tribal people. We are not nations."

Now that his son, Tarek, has resettled in Egypt and taken an Egyptian as his second wife, Sharif spends a lot of time in Cairo, to be near his little grandson, Karim. His older grandson, Omar, a university student, lives in Canada.

At 73, Omar Sharif is as charming as ever, smiling with those moist brown eyes and the trademark gap in his front teeth that have served him well in a long, distinguished life in the movies.

But the recent rebound in that career, he says, is thanks to advice from his two grandsons.

"I spent a long time making very bad films because I was in a bad moment of my career and also I needed money for my family and so on," said the actor, who reportedly ran up enormous gambling debts in his obsession with bridge - a gambling habit he says he's given up.

Sharif, who was in the Moroccan desert shooting a TV series, "The Ten Commandments," said in an interview that he found his grandsons teasing him. So the actor who burst onto Western screens in the 1964 epic "Lawrence of Arabia" decided to quit until a good role came along.

The dry spell lasted five years.

Then came the French movie "Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Quran," a 2003 film directed by Francois Dupeyron.Sharif won the French prize for best actor for his role as an aging Turkish Muslim shopkeeper in the Paris of the 1960s who befriends a lonely teenage Jewish boy, Momo. He teaches Momo about the esoteric traditions of Islam and the beauty and wisdom of Sufi Islam.

The Egyptian-born actor has long been an advocate of Muslim-Jewish friendship."I have a grandson who has a Jewish mother and I have a grandson who has a Muslim mother. ... I love them the same and they love each other. And everybody should love each other. That's why I made this French film - a Muslim man adopts a Jewish boy," said Sharif, who was born as Michel Shalhoub to affluent Christian Lebanese-Syrian parents and later converted to Islam.

Offers for movies began pouring in after "Monsieur Ibrahim.""Now I have 10 scripts every day offered to me and I choose the periods that I want to shoot and how long I want to be on a film," Sharif said, flashing that gap-toothed smile.

He appears in only four scenes in "The Ten Commandments" in his role as Moses' father-in-law Jethro. That is "just perfect," he said - he had to spend only two weeks in Ouarzazate, where director David Lean filmed part of "Lawrence of Arabia" more than 40 years ago.

In that film, Sharif's Arab chieftain character made one of the most beautiful entrances in film history, riding out of shimmering desert haze toward Peter O'Toole, who played the British adventurer T.E. Lawrence. Sharif earned an Academy Award nomination.

After that, he played a Russian in "Dr. Zhivago," a German in "Night of the Generals," an Austrian in "Mayerling," an American in "Funny Girl," a Mexican in "MacKenna's Gold" and a Cuban in "Che."

His billing is usually a bit lower these days. "You know, at my age, it's very difficult to find leading roles for old men," he said."I just did St. Peter," he added. "As a Muslim I did St. Peter. Now I'm playing Moses' father-in-law. But Moses is for all the religions. St. Peter is Christian completely."And of course I don't know what happens when it comes out in the Arab countries," he said with a chuckle while pouring himself a cup of mint tea.

Before he came to the world stage, Sharif was a star of Egyptian films and married to popular actress Faten Hamama. Now, he does Egyptian movies, with social themes, when "there's something I want to say to the Egyptian people, to criticize."A script he wrote in 1989 and acted in was called "Aragos" - "The Puppeteer" - a film about a buffoon whose shows dramatize the promise of former President Gamal Abdel-Nasser's socialist revolution.

The puppeteer spoke "the truth about what was in Egypt" through his puppet, Sharif said. When questioned by police, he would protest: "It's not me ... this idiot's speaking, I don't say these things, it's him.'"

In 2006, he plans to do a 30-episode series during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a prime time throughout the Arab world for broadcasting TV serials.He will play a successful Egyptian businessman living in the United States who returns to Egypt with his daughter after his wife dies, to show her his native country. "It's about me really," Sharif said.

Although his new films made in Egypt have a message, they are not political, he said, because "I don't find any terrible fault in the political situation in Egypt." The problems are poverty, ignorance and overpopulation, he said.Sharif sees no chance for democracy in the Arab world. "Because we are tribal people. We are not nations."

Now that his son, Tarek, has resettled in Egypt and taken an Egyptian as his second wife, Sharif spends a lot of time in Cairo, to be near his little grandson, Karim. His older grandson, Omar, a university student, lives in Canada.

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